As the demand for microfabrication of semiconductor devices or MEMS increases, not only a conventional photolithography technology but also a microfabrication technology in which a resin on a substrate is molded by a mold to thereby form a resin pattern on the substrate have been receiving attention. This technology is also referred to as an “imprint technology”, by which a fine structure with dimensions of a few nanometers can be formed on a substrate. One example of imprint technologies includes a photo-curing method. An imprint apparatus employing the photo-curing method first applies an ultraviolet curable resin (imprint material, photocurable resin) to a region to be processed on a substrate. Next, the resin is molded by a mold. After the ultraviolet curable resin is irradiated with ultraviolet light for curing, the cured resin is released from the mold, whereby a resin pattern is formed on the region to be processed.
Here, in a series of device manufacturing steps, heat processing in a film formation step such as sputtering is performed on a substrate to be subject to imprint processing. Consequently, the entire substrate may be expanded or reduced, resulting in a change in the shape of the region to be processed within a plane. During imprint processing, the patterns formed in multiple layers need to be accurately superposed to each other, and thus, the change in shape of a region to be processed may deteriorate superposition accuracy. Thus, in an imprint apparatus, the shape of a region to be processed on a substrate needs to be matched with the shape of the pattern region formed on a mold when the mold is pressed against the resin on the substrate. As a technique for making the shape of a region to be processed on a substrate match the shape of the pattern region formed on a mold, for example, there is a method for correcting the shape of the pattern region by deforming the mold itself by providing temperature distribution to the mold by irradiating the mold collectively with light. As the shape correction method, Patent Literature 1 discloses a resist pattern forming apparatus that provides temperature distribution to the pattern region on a mold or the region to be processed on a substrate by use of a light source. Furthermore, Patent Literature 2 discloses an imprint apparatus that provides temperature distribution to a pattern region on a mold by use of a plurality of optical fibers.